The Ashanti Regional Minister, Simon Osei-Mensah, is alleging sabotage in electricity supply in the region.

The Minister believes that some individuals had tampered with screws holding the metal frames of eight pylons, adding that these pylons could have fallen and plunged the entire region into darkness.

"One of the other reasons I decided that no, they would have to write statements. This is the unfortunate situation that happened, for which bows and nods holding the metal frames to the concrete pillar of eight pylons were removed.

"I can tell you, except for people who have deep professional knowledge in electricity, that can do that.

“And all these eight pylons fell. We were just fortunate all the eight did not fall on adjourning pylons, else about half of the region could have been in total darkness," he said.

His comments follow a growing feud between himself and the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) in the region.

The tension began when Mr Osei-Mensah reported the Ashanti East General Manager, Michael Asomani Wiafe, to the police for refusing to reconnect power supply to the Kumasi Technical University (KTU) after cutting supply to the school for owing GH¢600,000.

ECG staff have since demanded that the minister apologise and withdraw a police case against their manager.

However, the minister has refused, insisting that he was only performing his duty.

Following Mr Osei-Mensah's refusal to apologise, the workers of ECG have pledged not to honour invitations extended to them by the Ashanti Regional Minister.

• Read also: Ashanti Regional Minister defends arrest of ECG boss, rejects calls for apology

On the back of this, the Minister clarified that he extended the invitation to the ECG because of the alleged sabotage, so his outfit and the power distributor can find a way to resolve the matter.

“We invited them to come to the Regional Security Council so we can look at the adequacy or otherwise of measures that have been put in place at the various strategic installations of the ECG,” he added.

The minister also alleges that the volume of power allocated to the region often comes in a shortfall, which frequently causes erratic power supply in the region.

As such, he demanded information on ECG's schedules.

"I have requested information from them regarding planned and unplanned maintenance schedules. Also, I have indicated that there is a regional distribution of GRIDCo shortfall.

"When I took over as the Regional Minister, there were similar situations, and for a particular instance, with a GRIDCo shortfall of 2000 megawatts, a whopping amount of 120 megawatts was taken from the Ashanti region.

“Distributing only 80 megawatts to the remaining region, and that was the basis why I need that information because sometimes, you will find almost half or one-third of Kumasi off, and I don’t think it's happening nationwide, and that is why I want the information,” he added.